Mirror racials a solution to Horde BGs and Faction disbalance

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
1

It looks like Blizzard are taking path of least work and resistance and retail approach.
War games of same faction BGs are announced to be tested soon. Guess we just skipping to 6.2.2. faction balance allready. Testing Same-Faction Battlegrounds in Burning Crusade Classic

Original post:

Problem with Horde BGs queues comes from Faction overpopulation and there are several reasons to that:

  1. Most people were playing Horde for decades on Retail (because of their friends inviting them there, seeing better racials, and since end of Cata Horde population reached critical mass and it’s growth was snowballing while Alliance population shrinked). So they didn’t gave two thoughts about what Faction to choose.
  2. TBC arena meta influence, when Horde teams of Orcs and Forsaken having most advantages attracted PvP min/maxers and their … followers to the Horde.
  3. lvl 58 Character boost allowed Alliance deserters and people from retail who waited for 9.1 to re/roll for the Horde in TBC very fast.

There have been several suggestions of how to solve this situation.

  1. Mercenary Mode (Retail feature from patch 6.2.2. of Warlords of Draenor). Fast and convenient solution for the Horde that will annihilate only advantage and reason for a PvP player to roll for Alliance - shorter queues with remaining of disadvantages, like being outnumbered in wPvP, smaller PvP players pool (because most PvP players prefer being Horde), weaker racials on Arena where people die mostly in stunlocks and chain fears.
  2. Introduction of Faction change service. While it was first introduced in Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) brining it to TBCC seems like possible solution, but what really happens would be following:
    2.1. If Faction change would not be free and locked only from Horde to Alliance everyone would wait for another one to make the first move, but no one will.
    2.2. If it will be unlimited Horde players would leave for Alliance at every mid season. Then they would go for easiest and fastest honor, even if that means losing every BG on purpose. After buying previous season sets and gear they would transfer back to the Horde until next mid season. Side effect would be that Alliance players would leave for the Horde too. Later on this will affect PvE players as well as general population will begin shrinking, just like on Retail.

And here is my solution:

  1. Introduce limited Faction change service from servers overpopulated Faction to underpopulated only.
  2. Allow character boost on overpopulated faction only if player has lvl 55+ character of that faction. Allow character boost on servers underpopulated faction without conditions.
  3. Limit of character transfers to PvP servers overpopulated faction. If you want to play on PvP Megaserver on overpopulated faction you have to level up from lvl 1.

And cherry to the pie…

Each race currently has one active ability. My suggestion is to add another active ability from races of opposing faction, but keep the passive abilities unchanged (except addition of Hardiness for Draenei) as follows:

Alliance

  • Humans: Perception / EMFH (WotF like)
  • Dwarves: Stoneform / Molten Fury (Blood Fury)
  • Gnomes: Escape Artist / Mana burn Ray + Implosion trap (Mana tap + Arcane Torrent)
  • Night Elves: Shadowmelt / Blessing of Elune (Berseking)
  • Draenei: (passive) Hardiness, (active) Gift of Naaru / Battle stomp (War stomp)

Horde

  • Orcs: (passive) Hardiness (active) Blood fury / Spirit vision (Perception)
  • Trolls: Berseking / Witch doctor salve (Gift of Naaru)
  • Tauren: Warstomp / Gift of the Earth Mother (Stoneform)
  • Forsaken: WotF / Burrow (Shadowmelt)
  • Blood Elves: Mana Tap + Arcane Torrent / Elusive dance (Escape Artist)

… BUT using one active racial ability would set another on it’s full CD.

Examples:

  1. Tauren uses Gift of the Earth Mother (Stoneform) it goes on 3min CD, but War Stomp goes on 2min CD as well.
  2. Forsaken uses Burrow that has 10sec CD, but WotF goes on 2min CD anyway.
  3. Night Elf uses Shadowmelt that has 10sec CD, but Blessing of Elune (Berseking) goes on 3min CD anyway.

Yes this changes are meta breaking, but they allow of natural rebalance of Faction populations.

  • Horde players Faction Changing or rerolling for the Alliance would know that they do not lose their racials for this choice.
  • If PvP servers would see too massive burst of faction changes you can limit or reverse Faction change rules I mentioned earlier.
  • However I believe that there wouldn’t be massive exodus from the Horde as Horde wouldn’t be nerfed, in fact they will have options to use ex Alliance only racials in some situations.
  • This change will also stop the population shrinking of the Alliance with queue times working as balancing force at first, but then settling at even with the Horde.

P.S. I am Classic WoW human main, if you can say so, with my Mage, Paladin, Warrior, Warlock and Rogue being Humans and I can wait 2 years on PvE server with short and convenient BG queues for rework of Perception into EMFH in WotLK.
My only concern with this suggestion is for players around me and for destructive influence of Retail, where Blizzard hadn’t taken any measures and in fact showed Horde bias by providing QoL like buffs of Horde racials even after that faction rampant growth and Mercenary Mode of 6.2.2. in WoD.

TLDR

  • Merc mode will make game even worse for Alliance, just like on Retail
  • Faction change service should be given to players, but limited to preventt even more transfers to the Horde or faction hopping for Honor points gear and back in arena mid season.
  • Every race (Horde included, to promote the Faction change to Alliance) should get MIRROR active Racials, but activating one will put it, and the second one on their CDs.

(topic edits after post #40)

7 Likes
2

I see what your trying to do but they would have to be properly mirrored like

Orcs having perception and hardiness is much better than draenei counterpart as orc rogues would be the bee’s knees

Same with humans undead racial and perception

The rest don’t seem that bad at a quick glance

1 Like
3

I mean that you have to choose what active ability to use and using it would set another one on its full CD. Giving both at the same time would be OP to any faction and nerfing of Classic content.

4

Racials are bit secondary when you have an account of multiple characters or a guild you have been playing with. Horde guild would have to move as one to Alliance which is quite hard to do and early Classic guild switching overpopulated servers also had problems of having transfers available only to some members.

5

I think there’s literally about 0 ppl who stay only due to racials. Starting over is too much work.

2 Likes
6

Wrath had introduced Faction change service. If Blizzard aren’t going to implement Faction change sooner they would loose PvP subscribers. My suggestion is a way to get people interested to balance out population and make Horde queues shorter, but it wouldn’t be very effective without Faction change service.

2 Likes
7

No. Sounds really bad.

8

Why, is it because:

  • Alliance will become competitive on BGs while you would also get access to their active racials?
  • PvP players would be evenly split, unlike what is coming in Wrath with disbalanced EMFH and nerf of WotF, while looking for faster queues.
  • If this change works in Classic it could revitalise retail Alliance?
9

The reason is that many people have rolled their race due to the unique racials provided, changing this would require that theyd make at least a paid racial and faction change. And the second reason is that those racial combinations sound really atribrary, I mean as a troll priest, I would not want gift of naaru, instead gimme for example perception or stoneform! And as a cherry on the top, how would priests unique racial abilities be divided? I mean gimme desperate prayer ill take that!

10

Priest racials should stay the same as they are not deal breaking or going to transition to Wrath.
When Blizz buffed Alliance passive racials in Retail (was it Cata or MoP?) and gave priests to Gnomes noone gave NE priests a choise if they would like to have 1% haste like Gnomes all the time or 1% crit of the time. Instead they got RP, but weired bonus of 1% haste or 1% crit depending on day cycle, meaning that for gearing you should consider that you are having none of them, if you aren’t nightime raider or your regional time differs from sever time by a large margin.

Besides people are going to race change their priests for visuals when racial class abilities won’t matter anymore. Or for PvP purposes when EMFH would be introduced to humans. Why does faction or race change bothering you now?

2 Likes
11

With these BG queues I would not stay horde one second more if they offered faction changes.

For brackets and comps I intend to play alliance has better racials already, lol…

2 Likes
12

Did I say faction or race change would bother me? If they introduce them theres no need for such complex and, repeatedly, arbitrary change. And the funny thing is, desperate prayer does transition to wrath, yeah. So yeah lets do these changes and uuh, give dwarf priests touch of weakness and devouring plague and give troll priests desperate prayer and chastise, deal!

13

Ikr, dwarf priests are so super that they alone can claw the faction into net positive tbh.

1 Like
14

You will get desperate prayer in form of talent in Wrath. As all priests will do. My point is priest’s racials are temporary that will be removed and/or redistributed allready in Wrath and it only affects one of 9 classes, while active racials have effect on everyone.

1 Like
15

You cant seriously be asking for a change and saying its not bad cause it wont be bad for 8/9 of the classes. I guess if you were priest youd care. I stand by my words, bad change idea.

16

Exactly my point. :smiley:

17

i would rather see racials being picked and reset for gold.
1 or 2 racials picked by anyone anytime and pay from 10-100g to reset them

18

I had Forsaken priest alt during Wrath, NE priest during MoP. I had faction changed my Forsaken priest to Gnome for Herald of the Titans, and I have lvl 31 dwarf priest alt in Classic WoW.

19

No matter what they do, i will stay Horde.

20

Woah, youve played priest on different expansions! Too bad youre not playing one NOW. Lvl 31 alt, jeez man, thats like saying I got lvl 11 shaman and that id care what they do with shamans lmao. Honestly feels like talking to a wall over here.